Game Review: Watch Over Christmas (Xbox Series X)

A rare treat for old-school gamers and fans of festive themes, Watch Over Christmas is a classic 2D point & click game based around the most wonderful time of the year.

Developed and published by Dionous Games and having finally made its way to consoles, Watch Over Christmas is a whimsical journey of festive wonder. Where players have to help a 12-year-old boy named Cisco save Christmas by rescuing Santa, who has been kidnapped by Krampus. A journey spread across six chapters, as well as a prologue and epilogue.

Along the way, players will meet a ton of unusual characters, visit colourful locations and solve puzzles. All in a delightfully festive way and delivering old-school point and click entertainment.

The story might seem fairly straight-forward, but across its lengthy play time, a lot of clever extra detail and supporting characters really flesh it out. Saving Christmas might be the end goal but there’s plenty of scope to help others and find an end to Krampus’ nefarious plans along the way.

In fact, Watch Over Christmas’ strength comes from how it makes its world feel alive with its multitude of characters and their issues. Many of which do tie into Cisco’s quest but, like all good point and click games, there are plenty of conversation choices and interactive options that give a lot more.

Watch Over Christmas has plenty of humour too. Cisco might be only 12-years-old but he’s got sass and is happy to break the 4th wall on several occasions. Plenty of the game’s best humour often comes from the locations and Cisco will visits plenty of unique ones.

Locations like a quirky funfair in the middle of the woods where Cisco will take part in a witch trial. Locations like Santa and Krampus’ respective villages, that are twinned but have characters behaving in amusingly different ways. Or locations like Jack Frost’s kingdom, where Cisco will have to reunite a unicorn with his horn and somehow get Jack to stop hitting on his sister for a minute.

Every new area and every new character adds fresh pleasure, all with the added bonus of great voice acting, bright and colourful visuals, and music that is fanciful and fun, without being over the top when it comes to festivities.

Gameplay is extremely simple. Point the cursor at where you want to move Cisco. Hover over an item and interact with it. If Cisco can pick it up, it will go in the inventory at the bottom of the screen for later use. Everything picked up can be used but not everything needs to be used straight away.

This is where Watch Over Christmas’ puzzle aspects come into play and they are varied. Some are simple, some are challenging, some are obvious and some are obscure. It pays to talk and listen to everything characters have to say but even then, you’re going to have to use your own brain at times. Especially as Watch Over Christmas doesn’t include a hint system.

Is it necessary? Absolutely not but there will be a few times when players might find themselves stuck and unsure how to progress, so it would have been nice if there was at least an option.

It’s a minor complaint in a game that really delivers on the promise of classic old-school point and click challenge and festive frivolities.